. bad flesh

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Inevitably Dominic is returned to her clutches. His brief attempt to leave Kitty's orbit was valiant in thought but pathetic in execution, grandstanding just to throw Violet a secret party and disrupt the friend group by doing so. While Dom knew once he wandered outside of her good graces he could expect punishment and contempt, being reeled back in on his leash was the pleasurable, masochistic struggle he desired even more. He simply loved to be admonished by this girl, which is coincidentally how Kitty expressed her love. Though he had lost their bet at the end-of-summer party, Dominic felt like anything but a loser. For the umpteenth time the chance to finally have her alluded him, and since her own reward seemed to pale in comparison to the immediate gratification of his, the evening was a wash by his standards. However, the offer of forgiveness for her incident with Henry was a token he pocketed, relishing the knowledge that he could claim her another way. An even more permanent way, he knows, as the small metal tools rattle together in a compact case with the sterile innocence of a doctor making a house call. But for him this was rather…hobby than expertise. After a bump in the car he makes it to her door with little notice, hoping to disrupt her plans. Without ceremony he pushes his way into her familiar domain until he could claim a countertop, tiers of leather opening to reveal layers of scalpels, loupes, swabs and vials. "I'm here," he announces into the quiet, busied with his makeshift setup. In front of the counter he rolled the stress from his neck and shoulders with a deep, rattling sigh. “I’m really in quite a mood so I don’t want to hear your smart mouth. Take everything off and lie down,” he commanded over the sound of running water, scrubbing vigorously up to his elbows before snapping on a pair of nitrile gloves.

[kitty smith-sato]

A Diet Coke to calm the nerves. Kitty squeezes half a fresh lime into the glass, the dark liquid fizzing as the acid hits it,  her pink tinged glass straw clinking against the crushed ice. Stir, sip. She puts her trepidation down to her slight hangover, as though a night of drinking with friends in the Hamptons was more nerve wracking than going under the knife, a knife wielded by her madman best friend. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she can see herself in the reflection of the floor to ceiling windows; hair freshly washed and blow tried, every strand of hair removed from the neck down, skin plumped and shiny with lotion. There's plenty of it to see, her dainty underwear barely obscured by the pale pink short robe lazily tied around her waist, the silk slipping to hang open. Of course she has no idea when her fate will come knocking, so she retires to her bedroom. Scrolling through TikTok, swiping away text notifications, trying to quell the rising anticipation that stirs in her stomach, threatening to bubble up into real, impossible to disguise fear. Before this transformation can happen she hears the door, scooping up the pile of grey fur from her bed as she goes.  "Hello to you too." She places MiuMiu down on the countertop, where she immediately perches in a corner, watching them balefully. Pressing onto tip toes to kiss him on either cheek. She takes in the little display, eyebrow cocked. "I'm almost impressed. But come on, let's take this up to my room, the housekeeper could be here any moment. We're fresh out of virgin blood, but there's Diet Coke if you want one." She leads him back out into the hallway, lined as it is not with family portraits but with old movie posters; Carter with his arms around Julia Roberts, Kota in full 16th century samurai getup. Kitty hates this display of nostalgic narcissism, paying it no mind as she heads upstairs. "The gloves are a nice touch Hannibal."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Suddenly his feline ingénue is upon the same countertop, threatening the sterility of his setup and making Dom’s lip curl. Fortunately his mouth is quickly distracted by la bise of Kitty, Dom peeved to be relocated but also preferring the ambiance of her bedroom anyway so he pretends to go along with the suggestion. He doesn’t leave the kitchen without first grabbing a bottle of Cabernet, and at the last minute, two glasses, feeling decidedly civilized. The stretch of hallway and stairs is nothing new, a floor plan he’d navigated countless times under all types of conditions. In foreboding silence he watches the hem of her robe ride up her pencil-thin legs, the sliver of fabric of her underwear leaving little to the imagination as he fantasized about what he would soon be doing to her. Once in the expanse of her bedroom he licks a fingertip and raises it in front of himself, assessing the flow of air. This will do, Dom decides, busied a second time with his meticulous setup. Since his phone remembers her speaker he starts a playlist of Gregorian chants, perfect for the occasion as he took inventory of the space, taking mental measurements of her bedroom that looked like a pink Victorian acid trip. It was rare for him to ever entertain the future, but this was one of those precious moments that Dominic simply had to plan out, certain that he was never more focused on anything in his life. If this is what it took to care about things, maybe he could get on board after all. “Hannibal Lecter, really?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes at the tiresome cliche. “Better than Hannibal Barca I guess,” he accepted, prickling at the idea of an enemy to Rome. He poured himself wine and a splash for her, if only to swirl around the liquid and remind her what she was in for, smiling into the curve of the glass. “You’re talking entirely too much,” he chides, busied again with his accessories. His mind swarms with ideas for camera angles and POVs, feeling rather like his father—and unconvinced that filmmaking was hard at all. He pointed to where he wanted her on the bed, dark eyes washing over her tiny figure, head falling to the side as he assessed her like a hungry wolf with antiseptic and a pen in hand. “Four years of art history did not prepare me for the sight of you.”

[kitty smith-sato]

"I have a thing for Mads Mikkelsen, what can I say." Retrieving her DC, she takes a long sip, watching Dom as he worked the room like it was a set. Her eyes almost roll into the back of her head. Before she can resume her role as mannequin du jour, she picks up a box of matches and sets about lighting the many, many candles in the room. Every second or third one is a Baccarat Rouge, bursting with jasmine, amber and sandalwood, a haze of strong scent that made the room feel like an opium den. It's soothing her nerves, which have picked up a notch since his arrival, the reality of what was about to happen confronting her now that it was too late to go back. He moves with a precision that is so different to his usual lackadaisical languor that it scares her. Her body stiffening of its own accord, resisting her as she tries to move closer to him, to the bed. Managing to take the glass with hands that didn't shake despite her internal struggles, she swallows the wine down in one, holding the glass out for a refill. Dark eyes follow his finger to where it points. With the compliment that follows, Kitty's easily pulled into a state that was no stranger to her but one that she kept locked deep inside. The siren song of submission. Lips stained red, she does as she's told, climbing atop the bed that's covered in chintz and lace and ruffles, all flourishes of a person she wanted the world to believe she was. When she looks at him from here she can see him as others did. A cad, yes, but a wolf too, the exact kind of man parents feared their daughters running into in the dark corner of a nightclub. "One second," she says, her voice betraying her wavering confidence. She reaches into the bottom drawer of a bedside table, pulling out a rope gag and holding it out on one finger. "For the pain. Did I ever tell you my Japanese tutor gifted me a shibari kit? Such a creep."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Another splash of maroon swills in her glass. Hardly enough for a sip, not allowing her the pleasure of more as it trickles down his throat and joins a stomach full of narcotics. Some for mediation, some for pleasure, all humming through his bloodstream with a steady heartbeat he occasionally remembered to be his own. The color palette of her bedroom is all wrong for this, drawing her curtains against the mid-afternoon sun, dimming the ridiculous chandelier she insisted upon having. The room perfectly matches her façade, all pastels and bows and portrayed innocence, and it’s at this moment he wishes it didn’t, craving the leather and chains and rope that better defined her. Still, he can’t help but gush. Even in their most volatile or devastating moments Dominic could pour over with assessments of her beauty. A face and body he thought of daily, expertly haunting his dreams as his personal succubus, watching the lines of her figure spread obediently over her duvet. This precarious give and take they danced, more of the latter than the former, one heel forever on the edge of something from which they could not return. The sight of her gag excites him, Dominic reaching out to inspect it, twirling it around his finger before returning it to her grasp. “So soon?” he tuts with a facetious pout, looking forward to the sight of her teeth embedded in rope. “I haven’t even begun.” He stands over the bed, tugging her toward the edge by an ankle, nudging her legs to fall open as he knelt before her. Inhaling deeply with a hum as he shifted the pathetic string of her panties down the bow of her hip, scrutinizing where he wanted to see his initials given her original restrictions. He wiped iodine across her skin, the effected square looking suddenly jaundiced. With uncharacteristic focus he plotted out his working area with dashed ink lines, an elbow digging into her thigh as he did. “Maybe I’ll become a surgeon,” he mused aloud, admiring the beginnings of his work. “This will do,” he announced, dragging his eyes up to hers, ready. “Do you need a safe word?”

[kitty smith-sato]

For the first time the thought that perhaps he hadn't entirely lost the bet crosses her mind. Had he come straight from the Hamptons, leaving Mirren dazed and sore? A flash of long, sun kissed limbs entangled crosses her mind, shallow breath, teeth in flesh. Maybe Mirren was playing the same game she was, the perfect do gooder on the surface and rotten beneath... no. If he had he would have fought for his winnings, she chooses to believe. The alternative would taint this irredeemably. Still, as she lies back on her plush comforter she watches the red liquid swilling around the glass, Dom radiating menacing energy that confirmed the one and only consistent truth about him: he was capable of just about anything. "I meant for whenever," she says, flustered, looking away from him. She feels young and it's unsettling, an alien concept to the girl who had practically skipped her teens and adopted an eerie maturity at a young age. It wasn't even like she was a stranger to BDSM. She takes a deep breath, inwardly berating herself as it shakes. It's the transition from one state to another that she struggles with, usually eased from her defiant default state to a pliant, subservient one with the help of more alcohol and a lot of kissing. As soon as she's tugged she can feel her resistance start to ease, slipping as easily as the silk tie around her waist, which has come undone entirely. Time to give herself over. Forcing herself to relax, she looks up at the ceiling, the cornicing that was made to look Victorian but was put up in around 2006. "Ow," she mutters, glancing down to see where he'd selected. Fine. She props herself up on her elbows to see his handiwork, his initials spelled out clear as day, somewhere between her groin and hips. Seeing them there sends a jolt of something through her, something that makes her breathing dip and her head start to spin. If he'd asked a minute earlier she'd have said yes, but she's been pulled under and doesn't want to come back up for air. "No, no safe word. Don't stop."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

“Good,” he retorts, because he probably wouldn’t have honored a safe word anyway. It’s almost pathological, this urge to hurt and claim and ruin Kitty. Like most things he refuses to think about it, but it’s impossible to ignore with the heat of her so close to his face and this depraved, irrevocable possession he was about to draw into her skin. To love someone so much you want to destroy them to others, it made his little black heart race. Often Dom oscillated between scorning her existence and worshipping it, presently sat at the altar of her thighs, biting the hymns on his tongue. He practiced his initials on her with the cap still on the pen, grinning at the shiver sent down to her toes, his free hand pinning down her hip. Then he watched the ink blotch on her skin up close, his three letters sharp and daunting like Roman numerals chiseled into stone. It would be aesthetic and enduring. “Would you like to hear a story?” he asked, rhetorical as always, fitting on a pair of loupes if only to commit to the role. “Centuries ago, early doctors faced an unfortunate challenge: difficult childbirths. If the baby’s head was too big, or the woman’s pelvis too narrow, the situation could become dire,” Dominic explained, slipping the scalpel from its plastic, briefly showing it to her like a prize. “They needed to cut through bone, you see. Early tools for these surgeries were rudimentary to say the least, practically medieval torture devices. This led to early chainsaws, which while more efficient, came with a significant degree of risk and brutality,” he continued with macabre fascination, dark eyes glittering with a type of lust few could bring out of him. He felt truly alive, mouthing a trail of kisses from her thigh to her hip, settling into place, sliding on a mask to muffle his shivering breath. “I was so inspired by our date I bid on a vintage chain osteotome,” he revealed, wondering so badly how it sounded while it ran. “Used, of course,” he grinned from under the mask, dragging the blade down the spine of the ‘D’.

[kitty smith-sato]

In the corner of the room sits a 3 foot Jellycat bunny rabbit, its huge floppy ears hanging across its open arms, inviting a hug. Presumably from the child it was intended for. It was a gift her fathers had brought back from a relatively recent trip to London, their complete refusal to see their daughter as anything other than a cutesy, girly sweet child of a thing never more apparent. The girl they blessed with KISS for initials briefly wonders if the bunny could have a hidden camera, its beady eyes looking upon this act of desecration and beaming it back to her parents' phones in Los Angeles. She almost wishes it was so, but knows better— there had been plenty of instances where they had skirted around the truth that should be clearly apparent, so much so that she had finally realized it was an active choice to look away. Dominic was a case in point. She had caught her dads looking at him out of the corner of their eyes, or exchanging looks after she'd said something too revealing about their friendship. She knew that they knew that theirs was a friendship that disguised all manner of depravity, and that they simply chose to pretend otherwise. This, though, would probably be enough to stir them to action, if only they knew. Dom's pontificating on antiquated feminine healthcare and it's soothing to Kitty, who pays minimal attention to the detail of what's being said, instead letting the familiarity of his macabre interests wash over her, her muscles easing into the plush settings. That is, until the blade meets flesh. Letting out a cry of pain, she instinctively tries to kick him away, finding she's pinned in place. There's a brief flash of panic as she sits up, eyes wide as her blood blooms ruby, dripping down her hip. Her body is screaming at her to get away, to try and kick him in the face and run out the door, but she only looks, her heartbeat loud in her ears. She lies back, one hand clutching the bed sheets as the other rubs her temples. "Keep talking."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

It's even sharper than it looks, wild eyes watching it glint in the light of its descent. Through the loupes her flesh offers no resistance against the blade, skin opening on either side of the scalpel, the first beads of blood springing to the surface. Watching the metal sink to one millimeter, then a second, his mind’s eyes alight with medical textbook diagrams, pictures of paper-thin human cross sections. An incision through five layers of epidermis is superficial and will generally heal, but any farther into the dermis and the risks increase: more bleeding, infection potential, scarring. A playground of blood vessels and nerve endings, the makings of Kitty right beneath him, like opening up the control panel of a carnival ride. He sinks down deeper. It hurts, Dom knows, gaze unmoved even as she steels under the restraint of his hand, curious if he should have tied her up instead. “Not too squirmy now,” he murmured from under the mask, brows knitted together in concentration. “You’ll ruin my penmanship.” She shoots upright and he’s tempted to kiss her, eyes meeting hers, examining her face, checking his patient. Perhaps a bit unethical as he strained against his pants at the sounds she’s trying not to make. If he kept going he’d eventually reach fat, though it’s impossible to believe Kitty had any. Briefly he wonders MiuMiu’s whereabouts, if their so-called cat daughter was their operating theater audience. The invitation to continue talking is always welcome. What first—bloodletting, mercury treatments, famous lobotomies, surgery before the advent of anesthesia? He pulled down his mask and made her tip the wine glass to his lips before he decided his topic: trepanning. With glee he described the practice of drilling a hole into the skull, believed to release evil spirits or alleviate brain pressure. “What do you think bone dust smells like?” he wondered out loud, letting her dab at the sweat on his temple. His free hand no longer restricted her, instead alternating between catching runaway blood in a tiny vial and gauzing what could not be collected. “You’re doing so well, angel,” he croons when he finished the first letter, though he curses himself for not having more abrasive tools. “Tell me how it feels. Describe it to me.”

[kitty smith-sato]

A white, searing pain blinds her as the scalpel is pushed deeper into her skin. Any pretence that she'd had of convincing herself this would be just like getting a tattoo is gone in the sharp agony of it, her head tilting back and her knuckles going white as she clutches the bed for dear life. She can't help but whimper aloud, biting her lip as he presses on, indifferent to her reaction. Her whole body presses deeper into the bed, away from him, trying to escape the blade that she knows will keep coming, her blood warm as it runs down her thigh. It's now no comfort to her that he's taking this as seriously as he is, the realization setting in that his research was aimed at the best outcome for him, not for her.  "I can't-- help it," she says through gritted teeth, the pain coming in waves and making it impossible for her to steel herself against. Sitting upright makes it hurt even more and her cheeks are stained with tears she doesn't remember crying. But looking at him between her thighs, scalpel dripping crimson, she allows herself to be pulled deeper under. Pliant, quiet, as close to inanimate as she could manage. Their eyes meet and she wants to kiss him, wants to curl up in a ball on his lap and have him stroke her hair... the promise of this makes her willing to push through, obediently holding the cup to his lips and watching as he drinks, even pushing some hair back off his face.  Lying back down again, she braces herself for the next wave, her previous pain settling into a constant thrum she could live with. She tunes this out and listens to him tell her about the next Victorian procefdure that had caught his imagination, still finding his voice soothing despite the contents. "Chalk." The compliment fills her with pride. "It feels like I've been bitten by a shark that won't let go. It feels like I'm going to bleed out and die." She sits up with some difficulty, looking down and feeling sick when she realizes they were a third of the way through. When she speaks her voice is weak, wavering. "Can I have the gag now?"

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Though unwieldy to him, his restraint must be remarkable to her. His fascination with the morbidity of early medicine should be of no surprise, however, one of his many strange special interests held with the same reverence as his beloved art history. In fact, he could happily merge the two, enamored by works such as Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, conducting a public dissection; Titian’s The Flaying of Marsyas, the titular figure being skinned alive by Apollo. Or, on the topic of trepanation: Bosch’s Cutting the Stone. Kitty activates a special type of sadism in him, taboo and all-consuming. A competing desire to hurt her and pleasure her, although for now it is the former. He imagines pressing deeper and dragging across until colorful layers of flesh peeled open to her organs, metal retractors ratcheting to keep open the warm, meaty cavern of entrails still pulsing with life, vibrant with vessels and connections. To empty her out and crawl inside her, to be one with her in a way even sex paled in comparison to. As close to godly as one must be able to reach, the conductor between life and death. He allows her a short break before starting on the ‘V’, the strain of her voice and limited reach of her vocabulary betraying her experience. Her description barely satisfies his curiosity, watching her in a way that’s starved, dropping the gag into her grasp and waiting before reuniting the blade to her skin. A fresh incision, rivulets of blood running toward her instead of away, shifting to press his cheek against her inner thigh and catch it with the material of the mask, surgical blue tie-dyed with crimson. This letter shall be easier, two symmetrical slashes; when the scalpel lifted away he hummed with pleasure, eyes flickering up to hers, free hand brushing over the scrap of fabric at the apex of her thighs. “Almost there,” he cooed behind the stained mask, eyes half-lidded and drunk with power.

[kitty smith-sato]

This isn't how she'd have pictured herself being. Snivelling, weak, cowed. There was usually a pride in consensual submission, a role she easily slipped into in the bedroom, happily surrendering control. The unfortunate truth at the center of it all was that Katherine's life revolved around men. The French lessons, the expensive schools; it had been ingrained in her from an early age that all of it was so that she could ultimately marry well and continue on in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed, namely, being paid for by others, free to do as she wished with her copious free time. Whilst she had chosen to use this to further her education, she had deeply accepted that her ultimate power lay in the effect she had on the opposite sex, a power she could then wield to her advantage. Taking the gag, she straightens her spine, pulling her hair to one side so that she can more easily place it in her mouth and tie it around the back of her head. With something to channel the anguish into, she resolves to start again. This time she'll take it, and by taking it she'd be able to give Dominic what she knew he wanted. She stretches her open legs wider, leaning back but propping herself on her elbows to watch him work with that feverish precision of his. Braces herself for the fresh impact, teeth pressing down into the jute, a cry of pain muffled by it but still distinct. Forcing herself to continue watching, the scalpel meeting skin, seemingly disappearing into it, red bubbling up where it once was.  It's quicker, two small lines meeting in a neat point. He pulls away and there's crimson on his mask, on his face, coating his gloved fingers. Finally she can push past the wall of pain, the image of him with so much of her fresh blood all over sending a surge deep to her core, making her breathing shallow. Their eyes meet and she nods, bending the opposite leg and hitching herself ever closer to him and his weapon of choice. She lies back fully this time, no longer blocking out the thrum of pain but leaning into it, living it, letting it drain her of any other thought or instinct.

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Between art and death is where Dominic felt closest to his heritage, as if fantasizing about the two brought him closer to Caravaggio’s most dramatic works or da Vinci’s anatomical studies—more so than mere studying or viewing could. He wished he could have been there, smelling the linseed oil soak into the canvas, hearing the charcoal move against parchment. If anything, it depressed Dom to realize he was born of the wrong time, unable to skulk about Renaissance Italy sourcing cadavers, studying disease, innovating dubious crafts. This, he supposes, will have to be his artistic legacy, watching two initials gleam an angry red against otherwise pale, perfect skin. How much blood could Kitty stand to lose? Which connections could he sever, which organs could he manipulate, before the light retreated from her eyes? He aches with this grim, building curiosity, a shiver trembling across his shoulders to rid of the tension stored there forced to wait to know the answers. One vial has already filled with her blood, he’s thrilled to discover, tempted to tip it into his wine and start anew. Instead he produces a second vial at the ready, surprisingly deft fingers begging the question: was this his first time? Last, the ‘C’ would be his challenge yet. It is remarkably difficult to render a curve on an already curved surface with a straight-edged instrument. So it will rather have to be a series of small, rigid slashes—a minimum of four for the most crude version of the letter, twofold to achieve an arc. His precision activates once more, steadying himself, ears perked to the sound of jute flexing under the pressure of her teeth and her cries muffled behind it. He favors this letter most for its cruelty and for its significance, briefly imagining what his mother would have to say about her son’s proclivities. He’s feeling more generous now, his own blood in a frenzy to be this close to the end, a bittersweet anticipation that sends his knuckles against her underwear again, stroking where she was warm and open to him, a slip of fabric away from being bared. “Tell me you’re mine, Kitty.”

[kitty smith-sato]

The anticipation is worse than the reality. Lying back with a throbbing pain that radiated from her hip through her whole body, it's easy to imagine that it's at its peak, a level that cannot be topped by yet another incision. But she knows this is not true, knows that when the sharpened metal meets skin she'll be reminded again just how much pain the human body is capable of withstanding, fantasizing about ways of blocking the pain receptor in her brain. If only she could, she might let him carve her up as much as he liked, sinew, bones, muscle and all. She feels light headed and it's quite possible that she'll pass out before they reach the end, a climax that would leave her kicking herself every time she glimpsed her new body modification. So she grits her teeth, refusing to let unconsciousness take her. He's between her thighs still and something brushes against the point where they meet, eliciting an involuntary moan. At his prompt she pulls the gag from her mouth, where it hangs around her neck like a noose. "I'm yours." Her lips are wet with saliva though her throat is dry. Unable to help herself, she sits up again, loving to look at him directly, hearing her heart beat loudly in her ears. Each beat pumping more blood out of her open wounds. She runs her finger across the fresh ridges in her skin, wincing at the blinding pain of it. She gets a twisted thrill out of feeling the damage for herself. Pulling his mask off and throwing it to the floor, she holds his face in her hands for a moment, smearing blood across one chiseled cheek. Her lips pull into a pout. "It's a shame you lost the bet brother dearest, think about the fun we could have had today if only you had pulled through." She leans forward and kisses him sweetly, chastely, before finally going back to her horizontal pose. "Take your time with this one, you know how much I've always wanted to be a Cuvo."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Dominic hasn’t decided yet what to do with the vial, regarding the tiny glass like a trophy. Perhaps he would mix it with paint and immortalize her in a portrait, dip into it like ink and write her devastating love letters, infuse it into his favorite cologne. Dry it into powder and make it a blush, cut it into his cocaine, press it into a tablet. A way to wear her, ingest her, remember her constantly. He wonders how the color will render after it has been exposed to the air, the bright hues of fresh blood darkening to shades not unlike wine and jam, to ugly ruddy browns and diseased blacks. Her starving body must already be working feverishly to replace the lost liquid, Dominic admiring the pallor of her skin, the beads of sweat dotting her brow and upper lip as she was tortured between ecstasy and dread. How the body confuses itself at the heights of pleasure and pain, chemicals and receptors thrown into overdrive to calm the system and convince its host that it is not actively dying. So few people knew how disturbed his mind could truly be, most unable to reconcile such a beautiful man with these awful, twisted desires to be anything but. Suddenly unbound by the mask, his breath shivers at her confession—no, it is reassurance, a promise, believing her words despite her being literally held at knifepoint. “Mine,” he repeats with the first slice of the letter, that much closer to it being permanently written. He groans with the remembrance that this was her doing, her willingness the most intoxicating part of it all, bending to his eager exploitation. She’s closer, lost in the blotching of her cheeks and the depths of her eyes, swiping his thumb across her trail of tears to taste the salt for himself. "We still could," he murmurs with a wicked grin, another day she has escaped the inevitable. Returning her kiss with greater fervor, dying to deepen it with his teeth and tongue, pushing him back to his own edge, trying to keep his fingers from trembling. “What shall I make you do more…bleed, or cum?”